The Rift-Related Mafic Dyke Complex of the Rohkunborri Nappe, Indre Troms, Northern Norwegian Caledonides
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The rift-related mafic dyke complex of the Rohkunborri Nappe, Indre Troms, northern Norwegian Caledonides LARS KRISTIAN STØLEN Stølen, L. K.: The rift-related mafic dyke complex of the Rohkunborri Nappe, Indre Troms, northern Norwegian Caledonides. Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift, Vol. 74, pp. 35-47. Oslo 1994. ISSN 0029-196X. Well-preserved dyke complexes are found within the Seve Nappe Complex, Upper Allochthon, in the easternmost part of Indre Troms, Norway. They form a separate thrust sheet, the Rohkunborri Nappe, and are best exposed in two low-strain units in the Rohkunborri and Njunis areas. In these areas the dolerite swarm intrudes a succession of carbonate rocks and subordinate sandstones, siltstones and quartzites. The sedimentary rocks, the Nj unis Group, are supposed to represent the outermost part of the clastic wedge deposited during Neoproterozoic-earliest Palaeozoic time on the thinned outermost part of the Baltoscandian margin. A complex structural evolution can be recognized within the dyke complexes involving early block rotation d.uring intrusion, rotation of both dykes and bedding due to simple shear deformation during thrusting and subsequent imbrication of the dyke complex. The Indre Troms dykes are part of the Neoproterozoic- Early Palaeozoic rifted Baltoscandian margin and represent the transition zone between the continent Baltica and the Iapetus ocean. The Rohkunborri Nappe can be correlated with the Vaivvancohkka Nappe and the Sarektjåkkå Nappe of the Seve Nappe Complex in the northemmost Swedish Caledonides. Lars Kristian Stølen, Department of Mineralogy and Petrology, Institute of Geo/ogy, University of Lund, Solvegatan 13, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden. Introduction the latest Proterozoic to Early Cambrian passive margin of baltica (Gee 1975; Andreasson 1987). Mafic dyke swarms are known from several parts of the The tectonic units of the Koli Nappe Complex that Scandinavian Caledonides. They occur in the autochthon overlie the Seve units locally are composed of a variety of and lower thrust sheets in the northernmost parts of the . terranes derived from outboard of Baltica (Stephens & mountain belt; further south, they occur only in the Gee 1989). At least two episodes of mafic igneous activ allochthons. According to a terminology introduced by ity related to the development of ophiolites and are Kulling ( 1972) and Gee & Zachrisson (1979), the al spreading are recorded within the Koli Nappe Complex. lochthons can be divided into four major tectonostrati One is of Early Ordovician age and represented by the graphic units: Lower, Middle, Upper and Uppermost. The Lower Allochthon is dominated by Vendian and Karmøy and Leka ophiolite complexes (Furnes et al. Lower Palaeozoic successions, the Middle Allochthon by 1988 ; Pedersen et al. 1988 ; Pedersen & Hertogen 1990) ; thick Vendian and Upper Proterozoic strata, together the other is Late Ordovician to earliest Silurian in age with sheets of Precambrian crystalline rocks. The succes and represented by the Solund/Stavfjorden ophio1ite sions of the Lower Allochthon are readily correlated with (Furnes et al. 1980; Dunning and Pedersen 1988). Mafic those of the Baltoscandian Platform Autochthon; those complexes imruded during rifting of volcanic arcs and in the Middle Allochthon are supposed to have been fo rmation of marginal basins in the northern Scandina derived fr om the Baltoscandian miogeocline. vian Caledonides, e.g. the Sulitjelma lgneous Complex The uppermost tectonic units of the Middle Al (Pedersen et al. 1991) and the Råna Massif (Tucker et al. lochthon (Sarv Nappe) were thrust fr om the outer part 1990), have a similar age to the Solund/Stavfjorden of the Baltoscandian miogeocline; they are extensively ophiolite. intruded by mafic dyke swarms (Stromberg 1969) related As part of a more comprehensive study of the relation to Late Proterozoic rifting (Gee 1975; Solyom et al. ships between inboard and outboard terranes in northern 1979; Claesson & Roddick 1983), which extended more parts of the Scandinavian Caledonides, this study deals than l 000 km along the Baltoscandian margin (Andreas with mafic dyke swarms occurring in the easternmost son 1987). parts of Indre Troms, and fo cuses on their made of The lower part of the overlying Upper Allochthon, occurrence and tectonostratigraphic position. Previous composed of the Seve Nappe Complex, is an imbricate work, e.g. Gee et al. ( 1985a, b) , has inferred a late stack of lithotectonic units (Andreasson 1986) character Proterozoic age for the dykes and has correlated these ized by tholeiitic metabasites (locally as dyke swarms) units with those occurring in the Seve Nappe Complex in and psammitic schists. lts complexes are also inferred to northern Sweden. The evidence presented here supports be indigenous, and derived from the outermost part of this hypothesis. 36 L. K. Stølen NORSK GEOLOGISK TIDSSKRIFT 74 (1994) The Baltoscandian margin nized in Sweden as far north as central Norrbotten (Fig. I). The more complexly deformed a�d highly �etamor In the central part of the Scandinavian Caledonides (Fig. phosed Seve Nappe Complex, overlymg the Mtddle Al I) evidence from the Lower and Middle Allochthons lochthon in Sweden, contains a similar, but somewhat provides constraints on the evolution of the Bal�oscan more complex protolith, including both volcano-sedi dian margin. Stratigraphic correlations (Kumpulamen & mentary Baltoscandian miogeoclinical succes�ions (A� Nystuen 1985) of Late Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian dn!asson 1987) and elements of the Proterozotc cratomc sedimentary rocks within these thrust sheets have estab margin. lished three informal units: a thick lower mainly fluviatile The lower part of the Seve Nappe Complex in Nor unit, a middle glacial unit (Varangian) and an upper rbotten, the Vaimok Lens (Fig. 2), contains a dolerite-in fluviatile and shallow marine unit of Late Vendian to truded metasedimentary sequence, with similarities to the Early Cambrian age. In northem areas, the upper unit underlying Sarv Nappe, but metamorphosed to ec��git: dominates the autochthon and the middle unit is also grade. These units are overthrust by the Sarektjakka locally preserved; further south all three units are gener Nappe (Svenningsen 1987), which is dominated by Ven ally allochthonous and the autochthonous strata · are dian mafic dykes (8 0%), occurring as sheeted complexes, mainly Mid-Cambrian to Ordovician. The Vendian and with screens of quartzites, meta-arkoses and subordinate Late Proterozoic successions can be readily correlated carbonates, showing similarities with the Tossåsfjellet with sequences within the Middle Allochthon at !east as Group of the Sarv Nappes (Kumpulainen 1980). far north as the Akkajaure area (Kumpulainen & Further north, in the Kebnekaise area, the nearly Nystuen 1985). l 00 % dyke-dominated Kebne dyke complex (Andreas Stratigraphical and sedimentological studies (Kumpu son & Gee 1989) can be correlated with the Sarektjåkkå lainen 1980; Kumpulainen & Nystuen 1985) indicate that Nappe. Near the Norwegian border in the Tometrask the pre-Vendian successions were deposited in rift-related area, Kathol ( 1989) mapped a sequence of dyke-intruded basins along the Baltoscandian margin. The extensive sandstones with cross- and graded-bedding in the Vaiv Late Proterozoic tholeiitic dyke swarms of the Sarv vancohkka Nappe, overlying augen gneisses with eclogi Nappe suggest several tens of kilometres of passive mar tized metabasite lenses. He included all these units in the gin extension. These dyke complexes have been recog- Seve Nappe Complex. The high-grade Seve augen gneisses, together with units from the underlying Middle Allochthon, can be followed northwards from Tome trask ' via the area of Indre Troms, treated in more detail here, to Treriksrøysa (Stølen 1989), where the Seve units pro bably wedge out (e.f. Zachrisson 1986). ' - _ _ , In northem Norway, mafic dyke swarms occur in units ' correlated (Gee et al. l985a, b) with the upper part of , , Middle Allochthon and the overlying Vaddas (Koli) Map area fig. 3 Nappe. In the upper Middle Allochthon, the dyke-in truded units are closely comparable with those in the Sarv Nappe (and Seve in Norrbotten) and have been correlated with them (e.g. the Corrovarre Nappe of 1100 km l Zwaan & van Roermund 1990). In the Vaddas Nappe the mafic rocks occur both as dykes and as basalts in a LEGEND : � Late Ordovician succession. Thus, in this part of the N Uppermost Allochthon mountain belt, dyke complexes that were injected in the Vendian and in the Ordovician are juxtaposed. D UpperAllochthon : \ b:::l KOii Nappe Complex The Corrovarre dykes have been dated to c. 580 Ma (Zwaan & van Roermund 1990) and correlated with • Upper Allochthon : Seve Nappe Complex those in the Seiland Igneous Province. The latter are thought to have formed during thinning and rifting of R Lower and Middle l::1::jAllochthon the Baltoscandian shield prior to Finnmarkian deforma tion (Roberts 1990; Zwaan & van Roermund 1990). • Autochthonous sediments The Vaddas Nappe contains fossiliferous rocks of Late Ordovician or Early Silurian age (Binns & Gayer 1980) r-::::1 Para·autochthonous t;;:Jcrystal line basement and Late Ordovician basalts. The lower part of the rocks in windows Vaddas Nappe is composed of interlayered marb1es and schist overlain by a quartzite-dominated unit (Padget Fig. 1. Simplifiedtectonostratigraphic map of the northem part of the Scandina 1955). These units are overlain by a sequence of fossili vian Caledonides.